Texting and social media have made it so that the conversations millions of people are having are no longer immediate. Whether we are consoling a friend or trying to make a new connection, we can read the message we receive and process that message, send it to a group of friends to process, and then respond with a perfectly thought-out message 20 minutes later. While this may seem like an advantage when you’re frantically trying to impress the cute guy in your chemistry class, it actually is inhibiting you from expressing your full and total truth.

Before texting became the primary form of communication, people had to actually speak to each other to have a conversation. Call me crazy, but I think if you were on the phone with someone and waited 20 minutes to respond with a script designed by a pack of four different girls, the person on the other side of that phone call would be very confused. They also probably would have hung up after the first few minutes. If we are constantly relying on others to tell us what the right thing is to say, how are we to find our own voice when the real world calls for it? As much as we like to hide behind a tiny glowing screen, real life human people have to interact in the real life world from time to time. Us Millennials are unprepared in what to say if a stranger walks up and starts a conversation. Believe it or not, it’s frowned upon to say “New phone, who dis?” to someone’s face.

So how can we do better? How can we prepare ourselves for a stranger asking how our day is going? I know it sounds odd, but just wait until a hottie walks up to you and kindly asks, “Hey, how are you?” and for some reason you smile uncomfortably, say “not much” and scurry away as fast as possible. If a hottie texts you, you have time to figure out your angle, because a normal “I’m good” is too boring. Stop trying to find the perfect response and just say what you think when you first read the message. If you’re having a great day, say it. If you’re having a totally horrible day, admit it. The hottie will understand.

There is not a perfect response; there is only you and your personality. If a guy says, “What’s up?” and your first instinct is to respond with the ever cringe-worthy “the sky,” then do it! If he laughs it’s a match made in heaven, and if he doesn’t, then you’re saving yourself a lot of time and effort trying to impress someone you barely know in messages kept under two sentences. Life is too short to search for perfection in places it doesn't exist. The best we can do is to say what we mean, and mean what we say 100 percent of the time.